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This Sonolor radio was repaired for a customer. Sonolor was a French radio manufacturer. There is no identification on the unit other than the Sonolor insignia on the speaker grille, but the model is believed to be the "Sensation", similar to the Sonolor Rafale. This particular unit made its way from Belgium to Canada with the immigrant owner.
Cabinet designs such as that seen here are unusual compared to North American designs of the period. In North America, radio cabinets went mostly from all-wood of the 1930's to all-plastic for tabletops by the 1950s. A line of European design incorporated a variety of materials: the cabinet of the Sensation includes wood, painted metal, polished metal, mirrored glass dial, and plastic trim.
While working on the cabinet, portions of an unidentifed English-language newspaper were found stuffed inside the compartments on the sides. Dates from 1951 were found in the paper and the writings and references indicate it was an American paper. Topics of discussion include "Mr. Stalin's Atom and Ours", and a proposed St. Lawrence Seaway hydro-electric project. An editorial cartoon takes a poke at Peron and his wife Eva in the midst of an Army coup.
Typical of European radios, the tuning dial is labeled by wavelength rather than frequency and includes a long list of stations identified by city or country. The tuning bands are as follows:
Label | French | Translation | English | Wavelength | Frequency |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
OC | Ondes Courtes | Waves Short | Shortwave | 17 - 50 m | 17.6 - 6 MHz |
BE | Bande Etalee | Band Spread out | 49m Band | 46.1 - 51.2 m | 6.5 - 5.85 MHz |
PO | Petites Ondes | Small Waves | AM Broadcast | 200 - 550 m | 1500 - 545 KHz |
GO | Grandes Ondes | Large Waves | Longwave | 1000 - 1900 m | 300 - 158 KHz |
PU | phono pick-up |
The speaker is an electro-dynamic type with the field coil in the B+ filter line. Cathode biasing is not used however. Two resistors (200 and 30 ohms) in the B- line develop C- bias for the 6AV6 and 6AQ5 audio stages.
Repair summary (2012 Aug):
Sonolor Sensation
Radio Refurb |
bhilpert 2012 Aug |